


Forget Me Not

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Song is Forget Me Not by Marianas Trench.Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Forget Me Not

I’m not ready for what’s to come  
Does that make me  
My mother’s selfish son?

As she tore back to her room scared out of her mind at the random man in her room, he broke down, tears falling in waves onto the floor at his feet. He didn’t try to stop them in their path. He didn’t try to tell himself everything would be okay. He just allowed himself to feel as he slide down the wall outside her room.

He felt his breath rattle in his chest. He knew the diagnosis, its course, what was to come. Facts always made it better right?

Not this time.

No matter how much he knew, no matter how much research he conducted, no matter how much he tried, there was no changing what was to come and he wasn’t prepared. How was he supposed to watch her fade away in front of his eyes? How was he supposed to keep a smile on his face when she was getting worse with each day?

With the back of his hand, he wiped his tears away and took a deep breath, biting his bottom lip while attempting to talk himself through the cacophony of thoughts that accompanied uncertainty. How was he supposed to do this? It didn’t matter how. What mattered was that he did it.

Day in and day out, she had fought for him, for them, for the life the deserved to have. She fostered in him in every way a mother should, inhibited only by things outside her control. If he didn’t help her through this time, no matter how heart-wrenching it was for him, he couldn’t live with himself. “Mom?”

But I wanted you to know  
I will help you my friend  
From the lines to amend  
To the cradle again

He opened the door to see her lying in bed, her body becoming more frail, sinking into the old mattress, the new blanket he’d bought her laying at her feet. Reaching down, he pulled it up and over her, ensuring he’d keep her warm. 

When he was a crying child, she cradled him in her warmth. When he came home crying because someone had tortured him that day, she wrapped her arms around him and made him feel safe, if only for a moment. He sat in the rocking chair at her bedside and imagined her sitting there in the months after he’d been born. An eidetic memory only went so far, so remembering that far back was nearly impossible, but knowing his mother he could picture her talking to him as she rocked back and forth. No baby tones for her; she would speak to him as a person, the melody of her voice lulling him to sleep.

He’d been helpless then, as all babies were, depending on the unconditional love of another to make it in the world. Now the roles were reversed and she needed him to help usher her out. It would tear him apart bit by bit to watch her slide away, but he wouldn’t let her do this alone. In those lucid moments, those few and far between, she would know how much her son loved her.

If memories are shadows  
We’d best not waste the light  
Echoes of aphasia  
Have haunted you tonight  
But I will watch you sleeping  
And make sure you’re alright

The steady rise and fall of her chest showed him she was asleep and at peace, but on the off chance that she could still hear him, he spoke softly, wanting to assure her of the one thing she feared most. ‘I’m going to forget you.’

In one way, that was true. She wouldn’t recognize him anymore. She wouldn’t remember what his life had become, but she would forever remain his driving force, no matter what memories remained. Her devotion to him and his to her could never be forgotten so long as one of them were here.

“Mom, remember that day we went to the bookstore near our house? Shortly after Dad left? How you took your own savings and spent it on my because I’d read through all the books we had three times? I’ll never forget that. I won’t forget sitting in the corner with you and reading for four hours. I won’t forget that unique musty smell of books old and new that I didn’t want to leave. I won’t forget the peace that day brought me after everything happened with Dad. You could’ve taken that money for yourself, that’s what you’d been putting it aside for, but you chose me instead. I remember leaving the store that day. There was a homeless man on the sidewalk and you pulled out the last few dollars you had to give to him and somehow I ended up talking with him.” As he continued talking, new details came to mind - the scraggly nature of the homeless man’s beard, the piercing blue eyes, his love of books. That man had loved to read, but with his appearance people tended to shun him from libraries and he didn’t have the money to buy anything. “When you turned to look around the corner for the bus, I gave him one of the one’s we’d bought. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. He mentioned having loved Vonnegut and I even though I could tell he knew the story by heart, I wanted him to have something to hang on to even when he didn’t have food to eat. You’re the one that introduced me to reading as a form of coping with the world and in my own way I think I wanted to help him too. I felt great when we got on the bus and I remember seeing him occasionally afterwards. He always had the book in his hand. If you hadn’t raised me the way you did, I wouldn’t have been able to make an impact on his life even in that small way.”

Curling into the chair, he grabbed a small blanket and eyed her for another moment. There was a tear in the corner of her eye, just as there was in his.

His voice wavered, becoming louder even though he didn’t want it to. “You may not remember, but you will never be forgotten. I promise.”

I’ll be your  
Forget, forget me not


End file.
